1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process of friend registration in social networking services.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, to promote and support connections between people, social networking services (abbreviated as SNSs) in the Internet have been utilized. These services are designed to provide places where each user can post and disclose his/her information (contents) such as articles and photographs to other users. In such services, each user can register persons who frequently exchange information with him/her as friends (also called my friend registration or the like) so that their diaries and the like can be automatically posted on his/her page.
As a related technique, for example, to provide a system in which users not limited to individuals can easily utilize an e-mail friend introduction service and retailers can offer introduction services to pull in more customers, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication. No. 2003-044615 discloses a server computer exchanging data with mobile terminals via close-range wireless telecommunications. The technique disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2003-044615 allows registration of a user's profile information, introduction of other registered users' profile information, registration of e-mail friend request information indicating a user who sends a request for e-mail exchange to another user and a user who is a target of the request, notification of the e-mail friend request to the registered target user, registration of e-mail friend approval information indicating a user who sends a request for e-mail exchange and a user approving the request, and notification of the e-mail friend approval to the registered request sender.
To build friendships with others in a social networking service, a user A files a friend request, and a user B receiving the friend request gives an approval. The processes of sending a friend request and giving an approval are performed through a server which manages user IDs.
Each user files a friend request to another user whom he/she wishes to be a friend after searching for the user's name, ID, attributes, and the like. However, the user may feel that the foregoing searching operation is tedious if a friend of the user is actually nearby, for example, and the user still needs to perform the whole searching operation.
In recent years' social networking services, each user can easily search for a friend who is in the vicinity based on the location of a mobile information processing terminal. However, when filing a friend request using the location of a mobile information processing terminal, the location acquired by a GPS (global positioning system) may be erroneous or it may take time to search for a desired user in a place with many people or the like.